Description

Overview: Emote is a small structure that a person can crawl into and sit inside. Once a person is inside, the exterior of the structure will begin to vibrate and move. The structure will change form to reflect the emotional state of the person. When the person exits the structure the exterior will stop changing. The structure will not change until another person enters it.
Emotions: Initially the structure will be able to reflect joy, sadness and anger to begin but eventually we would like to find ways to express more types of emotion.

Joy:


Anger:


Sadness:


Interaction: When a person is inside the structure they will be able to interact with a touch-screen computer. The person will be presented with questions that they will answer by touching one of several possible answers displayed on the touch screen. A computer will extract emotional information from this interaction and trigger changes in the exterior structure of the building accordingly.
Exterior: The exterior of the structure will be made up of movable, color changing "feathers" and retractable "quills". The "quills" will extend when the mood is angry and will retract otherwise. The color, motion and orientation of the "feathers" will also reflect the mood. If the person is angry then the "feathers" will extend outward become hot colored and move jerkily, if the person is sad the "feathers" will become closed, cold colored and move very little, and if the person is happy the "feathers" will become open, warm colored and move calmly.

Here are two rough animations of the device transforming between different emotional states (both are .mov files, the first one is 32M and the second one is 6.5M):

Interior: The interior of the structure/animal, is intended to be a place where a person will feel comfortable expressing themselves. It will be a meditative space. The whole interior will be like a large reclining chair that is covered with a soft "memory foam" material that will form to the body of the person. There will be small windows on the ceiling that will provide a little bit of light but additional light, should the user want it, will be provided by two small adjustable electric lights. Speakers will be embedded in the walls which will provide audio feedback relating to the touch-screen computer interaction as well as soothing sounds to reenforce the meditative environment.

Like the exterior of the structure, the interior of the sturcture will react to the person inside. The seat will form to the person's body and there will be small vibrators embedded in the seat that will massage the person, providing physical consolation. The sound environment will also play a role in this consolation. The person should exit the structure at ease, having expressed their emotions, feeling positive.